Clarity Rose

Yesterday morning I got up at 5:00am to drive my friend, Clarity Rose, down to the local Independence Center for the disabled. It was a cold wet morning with clouds and fog blotting out the mountains to the west. Clarity Rose was waiting anxiously for me by her front gate when I arrived. Her long red hair was the one bit of color in her grey neighborhood in a grey chilly dawn. "Play that song," she exclaimed as she climbed in the passenger seat of my car. I knew that she meant the song, "I can see clearly now." I found the CD and slid it into my car stereo.

"I can see clearly now, the rain has gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind.
It's gonna be a bright, bright sun shiney day!"

Clarity Rose and I sang along in unison and she made me repeat the track three times in a row on our drive downtown. We pulled up to the entrance of the building and saw that at 6:00am, there were already three people huddled out in the morning cold and damp, waiting for the doors to be opened at 8:00am. One was a young man with Down's Syndrome, another was a Gulf War Vet in a wheelchair who flashed us a peace sign, and the third was a man who had three heart attacks, followed by cancer of the larynx. He couldn't talk, but he was able to write quickly on a yellow paper tablet he carried. He wrote the number "4" on the tablet, tore it off and handed it to Clarity Rose with a smile.

I had driven Clarity Rose down to the Independence Center that morning because she had recieved a letter in the mail informing her that a wait list for 25 precious housing vouchers would be made available on a first come, first served basis, starting at 8:00am that morning. We live in a city of over 500,000.

Clarity Rose suffered a brain aneurism several years back. She was in a coma for three days and almost died. After her surgery, she was in rehab for 6 months, learning how to walk and talk again. She's friendly and cheerful and can't add a column of simple numbers or fill out a simple form without assistance. She was a housewife most of her life - married twice, divorced twice. After her aneurism, she met a man who was also handicapped and they lived together for some years until he died of a heart attack last October. They never married because Clarity Rose's SSI would have been taken from her, and her friend didn't get enough from SSDI to support two people. As it was, Clarity Rose's SSI was stopped for 4 months when she got a small insurance payment of $4,000.00 after her friend's death.

Her SSI will be $579.00/month when it resumes - the maximum disabled people on SSI can get in the state of Colorado. I am worried sick about her. How is she going to pay rent, utilities, and the most basic living expenses on that tiny sum? She needs a housing voucher, but housing vouchers have become as scarce as ivory billed woodpeckers or black footed ferrets or any other endangered species. People have heard of them. They are supposed to exist. But no one has seen one.

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 3.5 million Americans experienced homelessness in 2004. 36% of them were either children or a member of a family with a child or children under age 12. Here in Colorado 18,938 people were homeless last year for 6 months or longer. 12,054 of them were members of families with children. The monthly income of a single adult on SSI falls $10.00 short of the fair market value of the average rent nationwide. Their income is about 19% of the income average for single Americans as a whole. And these folks are the disabled - those in our society least able to care for themselves, least able to dodge the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

A young man who was blind in additional to having a developmental disability of some sort was dropped off from a van and tapped his way with a cane over to join us. The mute man handed him the number "5". "That's 5," I said to the blind boy. "You are number 5 in line." He turned his sightless eyes toward me and thanked me, then tapped his way over to the brick wall of the building and leaned against it, his collar turned up against the unseasonable chill. A man who appeared to be schizophrenic got number 6, a woman using canes got 7. A slender black girl who said nothing to any of us got 8. By 7:00am, the mute man handed out number 25. Those who arrived after that turned away with their shoulders slumped and walked away silently.

When we were finally allowed into the building at 8:00am, 3 clerical workers handed out application forms and we were herded into a meeting room to fill out forms (I helped Clarity Rose with hers). A tired looking administrator told the assembled group not to expect anything. They'd only been admitted to a wait list. "Go on about your lives," she said. "It could be years."

When Clarity Rose and I walked out back to my car, I tried not to let her see how defeated and worried I felt for her sake. "I'll get one!" she said cheerfully. "I think God wants me to have one."

God might, but the American people don't. I've been angry for the past two days.

[richlevy]

Well. I just got back from the transition conference. There was a lot of talk about what is needed to get the disabled to work. In one group everyone was asked to list these items. Some people chose things like 'positive mental attitude', but almost everyone went for 'health care, housing, and transportation'.

It doesn't take a genius to figure these things out. Getting politicians to listen is much harder.

Originally Posted by richlevy

Well. I just got back from the transition conference. There was a lot of talk about what is needed to get the disabled to work. In one group everyone was asked to list these items. Some people chose things like 'positive mental attitude', but almost everyone went for 'health care, housing, and transportation'.

It doesn't take a genius to figure these things out. Getting politicians to listen is much harder.

Getting politicians to listen is next to impossible. What really gets me is that Federal policies on HUD housing vouchers is not a matter of fiscal policy. The money that would be required to give housing to this country's disabled would hardly make a footnote in the red ink of the Federal budget. It's a matter of social policy. Those members of the disabled who qualify for vouchers don't make campaign contributions, and like my friend with the yellow tablet, their voices are never heard.

[dar512]

Mari, that was beautifully written.

Two things occured to me while reading this thread -

1) Politicians are not really in the business of helping the people. They are in the business of getting reelected. That's one of the reasons I favor term limits.

The result is that politicians won't do anything they think might disfavor them with voters, even if it's the right thing to do.

and

2) Many Americans have lost the will or ability for critical thought and can't distinguish between people who won't work and people who can't work.

I hope your friend gets her voucher.

Thanks for the compliment, Dar. Yeah, I think you are right about people getting confused between the disabled and welfare queens. What makes me really mad is that the people who are dishonest somehow seem to get their claws on an inordinate amount of benefits (naturally, I suppose) while the people like the ones who were standing outside the Independence Center that day go without. I know a woman who was in prison for 5 years for running a meth lab. She got out and got pregnant right away. The child's father vanished quickly. She went down and got the state of Colorado to give her a pretty nice home with all the trimmings. When it looked like she was going to have to go to work, she went out and found a second sperm donor and this time had twins! I imagine she'll just keep scamming the system. Next time they ask her to go work, she'll have triplets! People react against folks like her and the ones truely in need suffer. The ones like her don't.

[plthijinx]

Originally Posted by marichiko

.....I know a woman who was in prison for 5 years for running a meth lab. She got out and got pregnant right away. The child's father vanished quickly. She went down and got the state of Colorado to give her a pretty nice home with all the trimmings. When it looked like she was going to have to go to work, she went out and found a second sperm donor and this time had twins! I imagine she'll just keep scamming the system. Next time they ask her to go work, she'll have triplets! People react against folks like her and the ones truely in need suffer. The ones like her don't.

that's the kind of shit that just chaps my ass.

[wolf]

Good luck to your friend. And I hope the baby machine gets hoist by her own petard in some fashion or another. I think that system abusers need to be gone after much more aggressively, and kicked out on their unworthy asses. I see far too much of that kind of nonsense not to get torqued over it.

What I'm finding unbelievable is the $579.00 amount ... I regularly see disability checks (never employed, non-depdendant) of $1000-$1300.

Most of my patients have more walking around money than I do.

Originally Posted by wolf

Good luck to your friend. And I hope the baby machine gets hoist by her own petard in some fashion or another. I think that system abusers need to be gone after much more aggressively, and kicked out on their unworthy asses. I see far too much of that kind of nonsense not to get torqued over it.

I agree. Like I said, there are legitimate reasons why a single Mom might need help, but someone who is not conning the sytem is going to use birth control to avoid bringing more fatherless children into the world for Uncle Sugar to support and she'll make use of whatever training and educational programs might be available to her to get off the system as soon as possible. On top of that, Little Miss Meth Freak trades the food stamps that should be going to nutritional food for her kids and hands them over to her dealer for crack, instead. I called DHS on her, but do you think they'd investigate? Nah!

Originally Posted by wolf

What I'm finding unbelievable is the $579.00 amount ... I regularly see disability checks (never employed, non-depdendant) of $1000-$1300.

Most of my patients have more walking around money than I do.

A lot depends on whether your outfit takes Medicaid or not. If they don't, you won't see the poorest of the poor come through the doors. Also, the states have the option of supplementing the baseline Federal SSI stipend of $579/month. Colorado and many other states don't. PA might. People who become disabled before age 18 can sometimes qualify off their parent's benefits. If their parent has a CONSISTENT record of high earnings, the "child" will have a higher benefit, especially once the parent is deceased because then something called a "surviver's benefit" kicks in. The "child" can be 40, BTW, as long as the onset of the disability was before age 18. Then there's VA disability benefits for disabled offspring of vets. Those individuals often get checks in the amount you describe.

Unfortunately, a significant portion of this country's disabled acquired their disability AFTER age 18. Someone who was a housewife, for example, married for less than then 10 years like Clarity Rose is just out of luck and in Colorado, anyway, expected to get by on that $579.00.

This is also often the case with schizophrenics. The age of onset of schizophrenia is generally between the ages of 18 -22, as I'm sure you already know. Such individuals are thrown onto SSI and get only the $579.00/month. And that's if someone in their family has the stamina to corral them up and get them through the process. Then someone has to encourage them to stay on their meds which schizophrenics seem to hate taking. That condition has got to be the most profound, difficult illness for both the family and society to deal with. Schizo's off their meds can be extremely spooky and they comprise a large segment of the homeless population. I 've had the occasion to deal with a number of them (I'm sure you've seen zillions come through the door where you work). The ones that I know who stick with their meds are like children, telling me the most amazing stories of their lives - all hallucinations, of course. But they're just so damn helpless and often predators will take advantage of them.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by marichiko

A lot depends on whether your outfit takes Medicaid or not.

My hospital is the preferred medicaid mental health inpatient provider in my area. I also treat uninsured patients ... we take seriously that thing about "treatment provided regardless of insurance status or ability to pay." We try to hook people in need up with MA as a consequence of their being inpatient with us, otherwise the county picks up the tab, or we end up eating the costs.

The number varies, but in the average year we'll eat from 1/2 million to 1 million in unpaid hospitalizations.

We also don't "Line item bill" for stuff like medicines, nursing care, seeing the doctor ... if you want to consider us prix fixe, go ahead. Your rate is the same whether you are getting a 25 cent pill or a $50 injection.

What's "prix fixe"? Was that a typo or an actual term?

[Elspode]

Mari, outstanding work. Your friend is lucky to have you in her life. I am fully in tune with what you say here.

My son is losing his Medicaid because he earns a whopping $450.00 per month on top of his $585.00 SSDI. It goes without saying that he gets no SSI because of it.

It is a very bad time in our country to be old, sick or disabled and without substantial means. We're right on the edge of taking them all blindfolded into the desert and leaving them.

[wolf]

French for fixed price ... like in a fancy restaurant where you pay $150 and you can have anything off the menu that you want ...

(It's the rich people's version of Old Country Buffet)

[Brett's Honey]

What chaps my ass the most is the same as I've read in this thread - I know a woman who is getting every humanly possible benefit out of our tax money, she's never worked a day in her life, she had 8 kids, her oldest daughter is 20 and just had her third child.....(cycle continues...) Then there's the friend who was my boss at a local warehouse years ago, before she was diagnosed with MS and became disabled, it took her two years of being in a wheelchair, living in a cheap upstairs apartment before she qualified for SSI, and now that check just covers her rent.....